How to Cancel Your OTT Subscription — A Simple Guide for Everyone
Netflix, Hotstar, Aha, SonyLIV, Zee5 — if you're paying for an app you don't watch anymore, here's exactly how to stop it. No tech knowledge needed, explained in plain language.
📖 5 min read🇮🇳 Made for India
Most people keep paying for an OTT app long after they've stopped watching it. Not because they want to — but because nobody ever showed them where the "cancel" button actually is. This guide fixes that. By the end, you'll know exactly how to cancel any OTT subscription, no matter which app or which bank you use.
1 Why This Happens to Almost Everyone
You sign up for a free trial or a cheap monthly plan. You watch for a week, maybe a month. Then life gets busy, and you forget about it completely. The app keeps charging you anyway — quietly, every month, with no reminder. This isn't your mistake. Apps are designed this way on purpose, because cancelling is made deliberately harder to find than signing up.
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Good to know: Even if you delete the app from your phone, the subscription does NOT cancel automatically. Deleting the app and cancelling the payment are two completely different things.
2 The One Place That Shows ALL Your Subscriptions
Before going into each app one by one, there's a much faster way — especially if you pay through UPI (PhonePe, Google Pay, or Paytm). This single website shows everything in one place.
1Open your phone's browser and go to upihelp.npci.org.in
2Enter your mobile number and the OTP that comes to it
3Tap on "My Mandates" — this shows every subscription auto-charging your account
4For any subscription you don't want, simply tap "Cancel"
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If Cancel doesn't work the first time: it will show you a QR code. This QR only works in the specific app the subscription was created in (PhonePe, GPay, or Paytm) — try a different one of these three apps if the first one doesn't work.
3 How to Cancel — App by App
If you'd rather go directly into the app itself, here's exactly where the cancel button is hiding for the most common OTT services in India.
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Netflix
Open Netflix app → tap your profile icon → Account → Cancel Membership
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Disney+ Hotstar
Open Hotstar app → tap profile → Subscription → Manage Subscription → Cancel
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Aha (Telugu / Tamil OTT)
Often billed under the name "Arha Media and Broadcasting" — easiest to cancel via the NPCI mandate page (Section 2 above) since it routes you directly to the right app
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SonyLIV / Zee5 / JioCinema
Open the app → Settings or Profile → Subscription → Manage Plan → Cancel
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YouTube Premium
Go to play.google.com/store/account/subscriptions on the Google account synced to your phone → find YouTube Premium → Cancel Subscription
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Spotify
Open Spotify app → tap profile → Settings → Subscription → Cancel Premium
4 What If You Don't Even Know What's Charging You?
Sometimes your bank statement or UPI mandate shows a confusing name — like "Google" or a company name you've never heard of. This happens because the app is billed through Google Play, not directly by the app itself.
1Go to play.google.com/store/account/orderhistory
2Make sure you're logged into the same Google account that's on your phone — this is important, a different Gmail won't show the right history
3Match the amount and date you saw on your bank statement or NPCI page to find out what it really is
5 A Quick Checklist Before You Finish
Once you've cancelled what you don't need, do this quick check:
✓Go back to NPCI's "My Mandates" page and confirm the subscription shows as Cancelled, not just Paused
✓If you cancelled inside the app itself, also check your UPI app's AutoPay section to make sure the mandate side is cancelled too
✓Keep the ones you genuinely use and enjoy — this isn't about cancelling everything, just the ones quietly draining money you forgot about
Want us to find all of them for you?
Upload your bank statement and we'll scan every transaction — UPI, card, everything — and show you exactly what's quietly renewing every month.